


kishin this, kishin that (there's no one else for me but you)

by strangelystillcrazy



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And feral, Canon-Typical Stupidity, Canon-Typical Violence, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, I'm not sure how long this fic is going to be because I might just write through the entire end, Implied Cannibalism?, M/M, Minor Character Death, Oops, Villains, and half, but they're also evil, i'm so sorry any manga fans but i haven't read any of the manga, it's half, oh also it's exclusively based on the anime, spiritstein is the main focus, the inherent homoeroticism of killing your coworker and then descending into full blown insanity, there's a lot of blood, there’s a lot of swearing, they fuck off-screen a few times, they're Evil and Horny and Homicidal for almost the entire fic, they're both dumb and horny for a lot of this, this is a fever dream fic, this is......
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:00:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29839833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangelystillcrazy/pseuds/strangelystillcrazy
Summary: [“We’re losing it,” Spirit corrects.Stein pauses.“We?”Spirit nods, jerky. He exhales, shaky.“I’m pretty sure we’re both going crazy.”“Oh. That’s comforting.”Spirit opens his eyes and shoots him a dirty look, but Stein just shrugs. “If I’m gonna go mad with someone, you’re my only choice.” ]It's a canon-divergence fic, folks. Starts at about ep. 7-8, and it might end sometime post-finale. Enjoy the brainrot :)
Relationships: Maka Albarn/Soul Eater Evans, Spirit Albarn | Death Scythe/Franken Stein
Comments: 14
Kudos: 14





	1. along the lonely roads, with all the empty human souls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seunggwans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seunggwans/gifts).



> this is purely self indulgence, for me and my brain rot partner in crime. i think about these motherfuckers more than i should

It starts in the cathedral. The kid-- _god, they’re just a kid_ \-- fights like nothing Spirit’s ever seen, guided by whatever asshole got trapped in the sword. It’s an interesting fight, especially once the witch steps in, arrows sharp as knives and a stupid shit-eating smirk on her face. Spirit doesn’t like her at _all_. The fight with the kid is mostly warm up, as Spirit gets readjusted to calloused palms and the scent of cigarette smoke. Stein’s soul is suffocatingly familiar and it’s almost embarrassing how easy it is for Spirit to disregard the decade and a half of separation, while he raised a kid, divorced his wife, and then got hired on as a professor. Transformed and wielded like a proper death scythe, all he can think of is how relieved he is to be compatible after all their time apart.

Soul and Maka fade to the background as the fight escalates. Stein’s blood drips onto the cobblestones and something in Spirit is set ablaze. They fight without a word exchanged, wavelengths attuned so innately that working together is as easy and mindless as breathing. Spirit loses himself in it, the rhythm of battle. Loses himself a little too easily, a little too deeply. It doesn’t worry him yet. Maybe it does, at first. But then his attention is stolen away by the seizing black blood body in front of them, and the witch and her stupid fucking arrows above them, silhouetted by the moon. 

* * *

It doesn’t come to the forefront again until they’re underground. The underbelly of the Academy is cold as all fuck, and there’s a pressing lack of light. It’s creepy, ominous, and full of people that Spirit would rather not see ever again, if given the chance. Including the witch Medusa. Dear Lord, Spirit would rather walk backwards into Hell than have to see her ugly face again. He imagines it might be more manageable if she didn’t say weird shit to Stein in the middle of fights. But here they are.

_“Why don’t you join me? You remember that, don’t you? While we were dancing?”_

_“I’m not lying when I say I want you. You’re a scientist, just as I am... we could watch the world progress together.”_

_“I always get what I want in the end. There’s no point in fighting.”_

The reveal on Crona tugs something ragged and raw from between his ribs. The rage in his chest grows with each gross misappropriation of trust she used to groom Crona into some killing machine. When he shifts out, lunges for her throat, he doesn’t hold back. Of course he only barely grazes her with his fingertips before she throws him back with a burst of arrows. He hits the ground hard enough to make Stein make an aborted move towards him with an alarmed noise, but he’s busy seething, blood dripping down his chest. They launch back into fighting easily, exchanging something benignly important about parenting and why Medusa should never have kids and how they’re going to kick her ass. It’s probably cool and motivating but Spirit isn’t paying much attention. He’s too busy focusing on the battle so they can make good on a promise. The anger that simmers in his peripherals is secondary to the flow of battle. 

There’s a new energy to the fighting, compared to fighting Crona. Stein feels… manic. It’s rubbing off on Spirit, the longer they fight, mingling with the fury still burning in his ribcage. But he can’t linger on it, not when fresh, white hot pain blooms in his gut, the wavelength between them carrying the agony over. She fucking stabbed him. _Them._ Stein hits the ground and Spirit pushes them forward, channeling the soul force that stops her in her tracks. His chest is heaving with the effort of concentration and breathing, fresh spots of pain blooming where Stein was stabbed. New bruises pulse along his arms and legs where they’ve battered against arrows and those fucking bracelets on her wrists that feel like grating stone against the scythe.

Stein’s monotonous cadence breaks through his thoughts.

The break from the maddened rambling about a childhood they both shared, one steeped in fear and the other in concern, startles him. But he doesn’t lose focus. 

Stein’s voice in his head never fails to make him shiver. 

_“I’m going to take the gamble.”_

_“I really wish you wouldn’t.”_

He feels the flicker of a smirk as the ceiling trembles above them, raining more dust and rubble down. Spirit feels Stein’s breath catch and he’s released the soul sutures just as Stein swings. 

Her blood is sharp and fetid and disgusting. Spirit’s never felt better. 

Her lower half topples and bursts into writhing arrows. Her blood rains down on them. 

Spirit shifts the second Stein lets go of the snath, and he sinks into a crouch to catch his breath. The laugh bubbles out of his chest before he can choke it down, but then Stein is laughing too and they’re both cackling and covered in blood, breathless and thrumming from the fight. 

Stein lights up a cigarette, and Spirit stands, swaying on his feet. Stein gets one good drag before Spirit steals it, lips sealing over the filter like a lover’s kiss. They look at her body, share a glance, and crack twin grins. No one was a match for an attuned death scythe partnership. 

There’s a new buzzing sensation in the corners of his mind. He can feel Stein’s brilliant sunspot-bright connection burning in his brain, but there’s a new presence. It pushes the edge of his smirk a little further. Seeks out the giddiness of a won battle and drags it to the forefront. Tugs his gaze towards Stein’s face and his crooked grin and the embers flaring to life in his ribcage. 

Stein gives him an appraising look, finding a matching sort of madness in him after being pushed to their limits and coming out alive. 

The kiss is by no means gentle. 

Stein’s hand is tight in his hair and Spirit accidentally catches him with the cigarette before he drops it and crushes it under his heel. Their teeth click together a few times before Stein turns his head and they fumble their way through a familiar sort of dance. They both taste like smoke and blood and grime. The ceiling trembles again. An energy wave that sets Spirit’s bones itching and teeth aching sweeps through the long hall. 

He could not give less of a shit about the kishin.

He kisses Stein again, his throat raw and each bruise throbbing in time with his heart.

* * *

After they recover from the fight, and all the kids have gotten safely back to their homes, they end up in the lab. 

The halls don’t seem as cold and dark as they’ve always felt. Spirit chatters on about something to fill the silence between the walls, fills the corridors with gleaming teeth and radiant victory. His blood still sings with the thrill of the kill. Bruises litter his arms and he’s got a new faint scar in his abdomen, twisted ones carved into his chest around older, more familiar scars, but he’s still vibrating from the adrenaline, and something a little more. Stein just smirks and answers with their familiar banter. 

They don’t question it as Stein automatically goes to make coffee, and Spirit perches on the counter like he belongs there. Spirit just keeps prattling on about students and death scythes and arrows wriggling across the floor like serpents. 

The coffee is hot enough to scald his tongue and he holds the mug in one hand, touching the cigarette burn on the side of Stein’s neck with his other. It’s shiny and raw, but probably won’t scar. 

Spirit doesn’t know why that makes his chest twinge. 

A voice that sounds suspiciously like Stein’s chases the twinge to the source and gleefully reminds Spirit that the scars they give each other may as well be confessions of devotion. His autopsy scars itch slightly. The sutures left to merge into his very being. 

“You’re thinking too loud.”

Stein’s voice breaks his reprieve, startles him into looking up. Stein eyes him with a fond little quirk to his lips. 

“Is it bothering you?”

Spirit laughs at the eye roll he gets in return, and he’s still laughing when Stein kisses him in the halo of warmth of the kitchen, arrows skittering across the tile. 

* * *

They end up in his bedroom. Of course they do. Spirit’s left looking up at the ceiling with the sutures crawling across the drywall, tracing familiar shapes in the darkness. Stein snores quietly beside him. There’s a bruise blooming on the side of his head, a ringing in his ears. A seething, ravenous abyss in his ribs. 

Spirit turns onto his side, gaze wandering over the slope of Stein’s nose and the rise and fall of his chest. He reaches out a hand, watches his own fingers skate across Stein’s skin. The sutures cast ragged little mountainscapes across his otherwise unblemished flesh. Spirit traces them, feels his eyelids grow heavy. 

He drifts off, cheek pressed against a bare shoulder, and a warm mouth briefly pressed to his brow.

* * *

The bite marks on his neck are an angry, violent purple when he steps in front of the mirror.

He traces the puffy, swollen ring with a fingertip, and then tips his chin up to better see the bruises wreathing the base of his throat. If he buttons his shirt up all the way, the bruises will be hidden. The bite will not. 

He presses the bite, until pain flashes hot across his nerves. 

He brushes the tangles out of his hair and then pulls it back, fumbling for a hair tie in one of the drawers. Stein hoards shit, so there has to be one of his old ties in here somewhere.

Three hair clips and seven hundred bobby pins later, he triumphantly seizes a black hair band and marches out of the bathroom. 

Stein is already in the kitchen, making something that smells good enough to kill for.

Part of him locks onto the violet marks creeping up over the cover of the turtleneck. The other part shambles over and wraps loose arms around his waist, relishing the sleep-warmth still clinging to him. 

“Pancakes,” Stein elbows him in the ribs.

“Thanks,” Spirit says dryly, and means it.

Syrup and sugar melts on his tongue and Stein’s lips are still chapped from the morning chill when they dump their dishes in the sink and drift back together. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. i want you to notice what you've been missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oh shit, it's madness

Spirit’s still idly touching the bite marks when Marie and Yumi meet him and Stein in the hall. 

Yumi’s grating voice makes his hands twitch, and he’s a bated breath away from snarling within three minutes of her presence. His temper’s never been this short before, around them. But something about Marie’s weepy temperament and Yumi’s snippy commandments make something tug loose from between his ribs. He’s bristling. 

Stein drops a hand onto his shoulder. 

He blinks past the anger, casts Stein a look, and tries not to recoil. 

There’s a static simmering underneath his consciousness. Wriggling little thoughts zip back and forth, tempting and vicious and gory and--. 

He blinks. 

Lord Death is saying… something. They’re talking about the kishin, maybe. The other two are chattering about something, rounding on Stein to ask him questions. His monotone voice is a reprieve from the high pitched and the prying. 

Death is watching him. 

He blinks, swallows hard, and tries to follow the conversation. 

“Asura’s madness wavelengths rouse the insanity that sleeps deep in people’s souls, magnifying it.”

Something catches in his throat. 

He glanced over at Stein again. Their gazes meet. He doesn’t halt his conversation, even starting to bounce creepy glasses vibes off of Yumi. 

Then Yumi has the audacity to blame the wake of the kishin on him and Stein like the two of them hadn’t annihilated a witch on their own. 

He bites back a snarled response, turns imploring eyes to the shinigami. He feared a reassignment, briefly, when the kishin awoke. But that worry seems distant. 

_“I need you to stay close, to be my personal weapon.”_

A little voice in his ear cries out unhappily. 

He looks at Stein, who watches Death. 

“Marie, you will be filling in as Stein’s weapon.”

Spirit bites his tongue and feels Stein’s eyes boring holes into the side of his head as Marie and Yumi start bickering again.

He’s still simmering when they’re dismissed and Death has him stay after. 

Watch Stein for madness he says. Alert me if he succumbs he says. How the hell is he gonna do that if he’s not his weapon anymore?

Spirit just nods and agrees and smiles, complacent, until he’s allowed to leave. 

* * *

He tracks Stein’s wavelengths across the city to the old basketball courts. The kids are laughing and calling out to each other, pretending like if they shoot enough hoops or yell loud enough it’ll choke out the fear. 

He stands behind Stein, hands shoved into his pockets. Marie is mourning her bachelorette status. Stein is criticising the carefree facade the students put on. Spirit finds himself craving a cigarette. 

Stein looks at him. 

His breath catches. 

The kids are whooping about scoring. 

“Oh yeah, I forgot. I’ll need to stay at your place for now, until I get a place of my own.”

Spirit’s lips curl into a snarl and he’s opening his mouth to— to _what? To bite? To growl?_

Stein shakes his head, meets his eye. Holds it. Turns back to Marie and shrugs. “Fine by me. As long as you’re willing to risk being dismembered in the middle of the night.”

Spirit’s hands, still in his pockets, curl into fists. The urge to snap and growl worsens. 

“Papa?”

His attention stolen away by his p—. Daughter.

Attention diverted, he blinks down at Maka. 

The request for hanging out nearly blinds him, but he manages to choke out a gracious acceptance, and he offers a smile that feels too vicious. 

He can feel Stein watching him intently.

The feeling of wriggling things crawls over his arms and chest underneath his clothes.

He waves goodbye to the other students, nods at Stein, and him and Maka head home. 

He finds himself watching the shadowed alleys for snakes, catching glimpses of shadows in the corners of his vision. A whiff of something dark and twisted when they pass a shadowed bar. 

The growl that rises in his throat is strange and familiar all at once. Maka turns concerned eyes on him, but he just watches the reflective eyes that stare back at him from behind the glossy windows facing the street. His pulse hammers away in his ears, and the instinct to grab his pup and run nearly overwhelms him. 

He shakes his head, smiles at her, and they continue down the street.

The glittering eyes track them until they drift out of sight.

* * *

Spirit isn’t entirely sure how he got here.

One moment, he’d been waving out his students. Then he’d blinked and he was standing in front of Stein’s desk, listening to him rambling on about the concern of the other professors after he cracked a joke in poor taste about dissection. 

He blinks the swimming black spots out of his vision, sways slightly. Braces himself on the desk. 

Stein eyes him, trails off mid sentence. 

“Lord Death told me to keep an eye on you,” Spirit blurts. Stein raises his eyebrows. 

“He thinks I’m losing it, I bet,” Stein closes his planner, slides it into his bag. Spirit takes a shuddery breath, squeezes his eyes shut. 

“ _We’re_ losing it,” Spirit corrects.

Stein pauses. 

“ _We_?”

Spirit nods, jerky. He exhales, shaky. 

“I’m pretty sure we’re both going crazy.”

“Oh. That’s comforting.” 

Spirit opens his eyes and shoots him a dirty look, but Stein just shrugs. “If I’m gonna go mad with someone, you’re my only choice.”

  
Something seizes painfully in his chest at that, and he’s moving before he can even rationalise it. Something clatters to the ground as Spirit corners Stein in against his desk and kisses him like the ground will fall out from under them if he doesn’t. Stein grabs his shoulders and holds on while Spirit’s hands flutter across his chest, his arms, up to his throat. He doesn’t know where to touch him other than everywhere. 

“I almost strangled one of my students today,” Spirit wheezes against Stein’s mouth, and calloused fingers grip his chin, forcing them apart. Deadened green eyes bore into him, sending a chill down his spine. 

He licks his lips, watches Stein’s gaze flicker ever so slightly downwards before snapping back up. 

“Marie is more of a temptation than I’d expected,” Stein says, like a confession, and the growl that loosens itself from Spirit’s throat is guttural and startling. 

“Temptation to dismember,” Stein amends, looking amused by the animalistic sound that clawed its way out of Spirit. The weapon just looks irritated. 

“You’re an ass.”

“The jealousy is new,” Stein prods, with a growing smile. “Is it a symptom?”

Spirit just growls again and shoves him against the desk, kissing the complaint from his lips. He knows he’s pushing Stein’s hips against the edge of the desk too hard, and he’s gonna get bitched at for the bruises that form later, but right now he can’t force himself to care.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one was a little short because I'm still figuring out how to format, apologies!


	3. if I put my fingers in your mouth, would you bite them?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> preface: they fuck in this one. it’s not explicit, just implied, but like. HEAVILY implied. also there’s some blood and body horror, so be careful.

Spirit goes home early. And by home, he means Stein’s lab. Marie is out for the day doing Death knows what, and the weapon-meister duo capitalise on her absence. 

Spirit finds the wine and Stein sets their bags down somewhere else, shedding his lab coat. Spirit finds two glasses in the back of the cupboard and pulls them out. Both have hairline fractures at the top, spider webbing across the glass. He thinks about crawling stitches and bright lights and soft palms and just about drops the bottle of wine mid-pour. 

Stein hovers at the other side of the counter as Spirit corks the wine and sets it aside. He hands Stein his glass, and then takes a slow drink of his own. 

He feels like he should be more nervous. Or afraid. But the only thing left is a simmering anger trapped in his chest, and a loud, rumbling hunger for violence in his bones. 

He rubs his knuckles against his sternum and takes another drink, watching Stein watch him. 

Stein’s glass is still full when his hands leave the cup and curl instead around Spirit’s neck. 

For a moment, Spirit watches the conflict in Stein’s eyes. He could press his thumbs into Spirit’s windpipe and strangle him. Spirit could hit him with his empty glass and run for the door. Stein might catch him in time, or he might make it to the front door and—. 

Stein tastes like smoke and blood. 

Spirit shuts his eyes and kisses him like nothing else matters.

* * *

The sutures are a strange feeling. Spirit is no stranger to having them, but feeling them is a different story. Stein has stitches everywhere, but the ones in question crisscross over both thighs, curving over corded muscle. 

Spirit forgets that Stein is _built_. 

The sutures catch at his skin when his cheek brushes against Stein’s inner thigh, and he pauses. Turns his head to place a kiss on top of the stitch closest to his mouth, feels Stein jerk a little. 

He smiles, turns his head to kiss the matching, lopsided sutures on Stein’s other thigh. The hand in his hair tightens, impatient, and he laughs, breathy. 

“Needy,” he teases, before ducking his head and getting back to business.

* * *

Spirit wakes up with a mouth full of pain. His throat hurts, but that’s mostly Stein’s fault. He stumbles out of bed, accidentally kneeing said bastard in the ribs on his way off the bed and to the bathroom. When he gets in front of the mirror, he tastes the sharp tang of iron on his tongue. He doesn’t bother flicking the lights on, able to see with the moonlight coming through the window. 

He bends over the sink, spits into the porcelain. 

A few blood-and-spit slick teeth glisten against the white bowl. Blood pools in his mouth again. 

He spits out a few more mouthfuls of blood and teeth, and turns the faucet on to wash them down the drain. 

He doesn’t feel panic like he should, as he watches bits of bone tumble down the pipe, heralded by the water and blood. He looks in the mirror, hooks his finger in his cheek and tries to see where the teeth were, looking for gaping spaces. 

His brow furrows. 

There’s eight neat holes where his canines and incisors should be, gushing blood like a bitch. 

He spits into the sink again, and then the hallway light turns on. 

“Spirit?” Comes Marie’s sleepy voice. 

She’s peering at him as she rubs sleep out of her eyes, yawning. “What are you doing here in the dark?”

“I had to piss,” Spirit lies, running the water again. 

“How can you even see in here? God, and it’s freezing.” 

Marie shivers and she squints at him a little. “You okay?”

“I’m fine, go back to sleep. Thanks for checking on me.” Spirit tacks on the last bit of gratitude just so Marie will leave him be. She laughs a little, and she turns to head back down the hallway. “Whatever you say. Just turn the light off when you’re done.”

She shambles off out of sight, and Spirit stands in the dark bathroom for a moment longer. He runs his tongue along the gaps in his mouth, and the taste of iron is almost overwhelming. He catches a glimpse of light in the mirror, and freezes. The hallway light reflects just right off his eyes, and he sees his reflection. Blood staining the corner of his mouth, eyes like full moons in the darkness. 

Well, shit.

* * *

Stein eyes him over breakfast the next morning. 

Spirit meets his gaze, and the roiling pit of hunger in his gut sharpens, intensifies. 

Marie awkwardly packs her lunch into a bento box. 

They don’t break the tense silence until her heeled boots clack down the main hall, and the front door swings open and then shuts. 

Stein moves so suddenly that Spirit can’t batten down instinct fast enough. A plate of half eaten eggs ends up on the floor, shattering, and silverware goes clattering across the tile. 

Stein has his hands around his throat, and Spirit has a blade up against Stein’s. There’s a spoon digging uncomfortably against Spirit’s shoulder-blade. They stare at each other, wide eyed, teeth bared. 

Stein’s mouth is bloody and the small, glinting points of new teeth poke out from his bleeding gums. Spirit feels an ache in his own mouth and knows that they match. 

Stein slowly loosens his grip, and Spirit shifts his hand back to flesh instead of steel. 

They look to the ceiling upon hearing a skittering noise, catching the tail end of a wriggling arrow as it flees the room. 

“ _Shit_.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> completely forgot to add that there’s a Spotify playlist for these fools, and I use songs from it for the titles of the chapters. You can find it [ here ](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5lxfmQN7kOIlX9DGlnNq7G?si=UwnQQHV4R5-UCJ4X2AHm3A)


	4. they don’t give a fuck about you like I do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> that’s weird, why is death weapon azusa yumi tagged but death weapon marie mjolnir isn’t?
> 
> :)
> 
> preface: all of the violent tags apply exclusively to this chapter. murder, semi-cannibalism, blood. they also fuck again, sorry.

They sit on the couch, and Spirit lets Stein poke around his mouth for a few minutes. He pulls his cheek away from his teeth and pokes at the still tender gums, blood coming away as Spirit hisses. 

“When did they fall out?” 

“Last night,” Spirit pokes around the gaps with his tongue, trying to soothe the pulsing ache. The sharp points catch on his tongue and send fresh pain through his skull. 

“Mine came out this morning,” Stein frowns, probably doing the same thing as Spirit. 

They sit in silence for a little, prodding their new teeth and wincing every few moments. 

“Well, better get to work,” Stein says with a weird enthusiasm. Spirit sighs, and stands up to head back to the bedroom to get properly dressed. It’s going to be a long day. 

* * *

His mouth is still aching when he gets home. Yumi was giving him weird looks all day, but he kept his snarls to himself. 

He bares his teeth at his reflection, when he stands over the bathroom sink and examines the damage. 

Eight large, pointed teeth have grown in fully throughout the day, pushing his other teeth out of the way ever so slightly. It didn’t jack anything up, thankfully, but he can feel it in the hinge of his jaw. A raw, pulsing pain. He can’t close his mouth properly anymore, tests it just to be sure. His jaws refuse to close completely, open just enough to cause the tips of the upper teeth to catch on his bottom lip. 

Spirit sighs, heavy. He can only hope that they aren’t too obvious when he’s speaking, or the jig is going to be up _very_ quickly. 

There’s movement in the mirror. 

At first, Spirit is happy to shrug it off as another skittering snake that is just outside of reality, but then it clears its throat and—

It’s Stein. 

The idiot bares his teeth in what could be a smile, if Spirit squints and tilts his head. His lips tug into a proper smile anyways, damn him. 

“We match,” Stein says at Spirit’s reflection in the mirror. The weapon turns and leans back against the sink, watching Stein open and close his mouth experimentally. He looks ridiculous. Spirit staunchly ignores the fact he was just doing the same thing, except alone and in the mirror.

* * *

They’re on a tailspin. 

It started with the bitemark— reddened but slowly healing. Spirit had finally started to go through a class period without touching the mark and losing his mind. 

But then Stein had traced a finger along the ring of teeth marks on their way to the academy, and said, plainly, “I need to refresh this. I know you like having marks.”

Now, about four hours later, Spirit is still having sporadic conniptions. He finds himself tracing over the marks and then he thinks about the casualness of Stein’s voice and the sharp, tearing teeth they both share. Fantasises about the scars they might leave, if the bite is deepened, repeated. 

When the bell rings, he barely even notices. He thinks he says goodbye to all his students, but as soon as they’re gone for lunch, he’s on a straight path to Stein’s classroom. 

From there, it’s a smirk, a jumble of limbs, a tight grip on someone’s wrist, and then a dark storage closet. 

Stein acts on his words almost immediately— loosing Spirit’s tie and popping the buttons on his shirt. There’s a hitch of breath and Stein’s grip on his shoulders tightens slightly and then pain blooms bright and heady at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. Spirit gasps, fists one hand in Stein’s coat and the other in his hair, keeping him close instead of pushing him away. 

Blood drips down his chest from the bite, which throbs with each rabbity pulse of his heart. It’s staining his only work shirt but he can’t even bring himself to care. Stein’s lips are smeared crimson and _Spirit’s_ blood is staining his teeth his mouth is covered in _Spirit’s blood_. 

He thinks he’s going to faint. 

They grapple with each other, hips slotting together as Spirit shoves him back against a shelf and tugs the turtleneck down. 

Biting into the same spot Stein did relieves the ache in his jaw that he’d gotten used to. Warmth pours over his lips and tongue and teeth, the sharp tang of iron making something in his chest _writhe._ He wants to keep biting down, and it doesn’t even scare him like it should. 

They might be making a little too much noise for a storage closet, Spirit realises belatedly, as the door opens. 

Yumi’s silhouette fills his vision, their eyes wide and glinting in the dark of the closet. She starts talking before Spirit can even get all the way off of Stein, who only sprawls a little more professionally against the shelves. Spirit mops up the blood from his shoulder with one hand, which slowly clenches into a fist. Yumi’s lecturing him on workplace professionalism. Her voice grates on his nerves—

“You are being horrifically immature, running around making out in custodian closets! I should report you to Lord Death—“

She’s just prattling on, glasses reflecting light in a fashion that is so much more condescending than Stein, and Spirit feels his thready strand of control snap. 

* * *

Across town, Maka feels a thunderous wave of energy, and drops the plate in her hands. It shatters into a million shards of porcelain, but she barely even notices. 

She hurries to the window, the one facing the academy. She can see a billowing soul, resonating as it grows and crackles with something _mad._ It’s a worryingly familiar wavelength. 

Soul pokes his head into the kitchen, concern written all over his face. “Maka? You okay?”

She looks him in the eye, and he stands a little straighter, hands clenching into fists. 

“Shit’s fucked, Soul.”

* * *

Yumi pants, clutching at one useless arm. Her glasses are shattered at her feet, and she has to squint to make out Spirit’s face when he’s this close. 

She knows his teeth aren’t supposed to be that big, or that sharp. The fucking _bite-mark_ on his neck isn’t supposed to look like that. 

She knows his eyes are _not_ supposed to be red.

His arm shifts fully into a blade as he charges her, and she swings one leg up, knowing already that she’s going to lose this. But an Azusa never goes down without a fight, so she fires. 

* * *

Across campus, Lord Death pauses. There’s a commotion going on, he can feel it tugging at his mind. A quite large commotion. 

He dismisses it, for now. With four different death scythes in the building, no problem will prove to be a big issue. 

* * *

“I’m impressed,” Stein says, a little hoarsely. 

The dust from the rubble settles. 

There’s a sizable, Yumi-shaped imprint in the opposite wall of the hallway. The death scythe in question is lying motionless on the floor, pieces of drywall and glass caught in her hair. There’s an impressive amount of blood, on both of them, and several feet of the walls and floor. 

Spirit’s still panting, blades torn through his shirt at his shoulders and elbows, hands slowly going from several stabby points to his normal, fleshy digits. There’s a hole in his shoulder from where Yumi shot him. He can’t even feel the pain through his adrenaline. 

The soul that hovers before him is quivering, and tantalizing, and Spirit is so so _hungry_. 

A hand gently settles over his nape, shoves his face closer to the soul. He automatically reaches out and grabs it. Stein’s voice is more of a rasp than actual words. 

“Eat it, and then we run.”

Well.

How could he refuse? 

The soul burns on the way down. Or maybe that’s the last dredges of his sanity dying in a bloody fire as he consumes the soul of a fellow death scythe, and feels it fuel his body like dead brush in a wildfire. He spares a fleeting prayer, hopes Yumi finds the afterlife she was looking for, and then they begin to run. 

* * *

They meet surprisingly little resistance. To be fair, they’re embarrassingly unprepared. When some faculty members step in their path like they’re trying to talk them down, Spirit feels a tug at his wavelength. It feels so natural to shift, mid-sprint, and reform in Stein’s hands. They backed off pretty quick after that. The event of a crazed meister and his equally-insane death scythe partner is not one that any of the DWMA staff are equipped to deal with at 11 AM. 

His heart is still beating wildly when they leave the city limits, and Stein slows down into a jog, and then a walk. He transforms back into a legged form, feet hitting the ground solidly. There’s still blood dried on his mouth and hands, and pretty much all over his shirt. 

The lab looms up out of the fog, and Spirit tangles their fingers together. Stein squeezes his hand once, and doesn’t even mind that some of the dried blood flakes off in his palm, or that the blood still dripping from his shoulder wound is smearing between their palms. 

When they get inside, Spirit barely gets one breath before he’s shoved against a wall, and Stein’s teeth are at his neck. The bite mark from before is still swollen and painful, but the fresh bloom of agony settles whatever’s been screaming in his head. 

“Bed, _bed,_ ” Spirit rasps, pushing at Stein’s shoulders. The meister growls— honest to god _growls_ — and digs his teeth in a little further before pulling away. 

Spirit feels faint at the sight of his blood splashed over Stein’s lips (or maybe that’s the blood loss), and crushes their mouths together. 

“I thought you wanted to get to the bed,” Stein laughs, jagged, against his lips. Spirit bites his bottom lip out of spite, and feels it split. 

* * *

There’s blood smeared over Spirit’s throat, and chest, and Stein’s hands and lips are stained. It’s drying in both of their clothes, and the sheets, and their hair. It looks like someone was murdered in their bed. Spirit kind of feels like that someone was him, splayed out underneath Stein and letting him bite scars into his shoulders and neck. 

To be fair, Spirit has covered him in the same amount of bleeding teeth marks. It’s intoxicating, and he feels like he might pass out from the high. Or maybe that’s the blood loss, again. 

Stein comes back from the bathroom, still nude, with a first aid kit in his hand and a cigarette dangling from his lips. He exhales smoke through his nose before sitting down next to Spirit, and starting to rummage through the kit. 

Spirit steals the cigarette, takes a drag. 

* * *

Fourteen bandage squares and a stitched gunshot wound later, they’re in loose clothes and watching the small TV in Stein’s living room. A squirrelly news reporter is chattering on about “a murder that took place inside the prestigious death weapon-meister academy”. His stomach rumbles a little. Stein sets a hand on his knee, and Spirit takes a slow drink of his coffee. 

He can feel, acutely, their mingled wavelengths. He’s also vividly aware of the new presence, a new wavering in the places where their souls converge. A darkness, almost, encroaching on their bond. Except it’s not coming from outside, it’s from within. 

There’s a scuttling sound, and their heads both swivel simultaneously towards the noise. A few wayward arrows scrabble for safety underneath the rug. A low, threatening growl looses itself from Spirit’s throat, but then Stein nuzzles at his jaw a little, and catches him on the side of the head with the screw-end. 

The arrows are the least of his worries, now. Medusa can get fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not sorry for making them fuck again. I’ve seen how horny this ship tag can be, and it makes this look vanilla. but if it’s not your thing, don’t worry, it’s never going to be plot important OR explicit. if it IS your thing, maybe I’ll write porn for them in the future in a separate fic. who knows

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me on twitter @ strangelystill  
> or on tumblr @ strangelystillhere


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